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In a study of survey data from 30,000 people, the people who recently gave to any charity were 43 percent more likely than nongivers to report being "very happy." They were 68 percent less likely to report having felt "hopeless." This research shows that making charitable donations can make people happier.
Which of the following, if true, would present the most serious challenge to the argument above?
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| In a study of survey data from 30,000 people, the people who recently gave to any charity were 43 percent more likely than nongivers to report being "very happy." |
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| They were 68 percent less likely to report having felt "hopeless." |
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| This research shows that making charitable donations can make people happier. |
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The argument starts with statistical evidence from a large study showing correlations between charitable giving and positive emotions (higher happiness, lower hopelessness). It then jumps to a causal conclusion that charitable donations make people happier.
Making charitable donations can make people happier.
This is a classic correlation-to-causation argument. The premises show that givers and non-givers have different happiness levels, but the conclusion assumes that giving causes the happiness difference. The logical gap is that we don't know if giving makes people happy, or if happy people are more likely to give, or if some other factor causes both.
Weaken - We need to find information that would reduce our belief in the conclusion that making charitable donations can make people happier.
The argument makes a causal claim (donations CAUSE happiness) based on correlational data showing charity givers are more likely to report being 'very happy' and less likely to feel 'hopeless'.
Since the argument jumps from correlation to causation, we should look for scenarios that suggest alternative explanations for why charity givers are happier. The key weakness is assuming that giving causes happiness rather than considering that happiness might cause giving, or that some third factor causes both happiness and charitable behavior.
This directly challenges the causal direction assumed in the argument. If people give more when they're already happy (following celebrations, births, etc.), this suggests that happiness leads to giving rather than giving leading to happiness. This would explain why charity givers are happier in the study - they were already happy when they decided to give. This creates serious doubt about whether charitable donations actually make people happier, which is exactly what we need to weaken the argument.
This explains a motivation for giving (social pressure to fit in) but doesn't challenge whether giving makes people happier. People could still become happier from giving even if their initial motivation was social conformity. This doesn't weaken the causal claim that donations lead to increased happiness.
This is about happy people who DON'T give to charity. But the argument is specifically about whether giving CAUSES happiness in those who do give. The existence of happy non-givers doesn't contradict the claim that giving can make people happier - it just shows there are other ways to be happy too.
This addresses the relationship between donation size and happiness level, but the original argument doesn't make any claims about how much people need to give to become happier. Whether someone gives $10 or $1000, the argument just claims that giving (in any amount) can increase happiness. This doesn't challenge the basic causal relationship.
The percentage of income donated is irrelevant to whether giving causes happiness. The argument claims that making charitable donations can make people happier, regardless of how much of their income people donate. Whether it's 5% or 50% of income doesn't affect the validity of the causal claim.